Editorial: Time for Orange County legislators to take over control

Monday

Jan 12, 2015 at 12:30 PMJan 12, 2015 at 12:30 PM

As tempting as it might be for the chairman of the Orange County Legislature to continue exchanging verbal jabs with the county executive, Steve Brescia has something better to do with his time and our future. This is the opportunity for him to lead Orange County out of the quagmire where it has been stuck for the past three years.

He should stop talking about whether Steve Neuhaus needs to attend more legislative sessions and committee meetings. It is not a lack of attendance that has brought the county to this latest impasse, it is a lack of direction.

Brescia can provide that by working with the united Democrats on the Legislature and the increasing number of Republicans who have been misled and misinformed for too long and are starting to realize that following the county executive will serve neither their interests nor those of the county.

It is time for the Legislature to take control. That will require 14 votes, the supermajority within reach on many of the divisive issues that have had legislators spinning their wheels, as they now acknowledge.

Start with the Valley View nursing home. Legislators have voted to fund it for a full year, ignoring objections from Neuhaus. They seem to understand that the county is not likely to prevail in its appeal of a court decision blocking the illegal sale. If they read that court decision for themselves and stop relying on the shaky legal advice Neuhaus embraces, they will see that following this first lengthy process is another powerful legal challenge waiting to be raised.

Even if some of the members still want to sell Valley View, even if the legitimate numbers provided by accountants do not continue to be so compelling in the future, legislators should understand that this issue has to be put on hold for a few years, at least.

Then they can turn to the Government Center and reclaim their assumed right to consider alternative plans to save money and preserve the building. Many on the Legislature were outraged, as they should be, by the county executive’s interference with the process that a clear majority wanted to explore.

They can take the same supermajority approach on the law regarding seizure of assets in court cases and a minor increase in the county property tax rate. Both measures were initiated by the administration, which abandoned legislative supporters with no warning and then had the nerve to lecture them about the consequences.

Brescia has not been known as an angry man in his decades in public life. But he is fed up now and, as he explained, “it was the collective frustration of the Legislature that I spoke about.

He can start by working in full view of the public — no secret party caucuses, no unaccountable ad hoc committees — to bring legislators together on proposals that can command a veto-proof majority.

The county executive is welcome to attend, but legislators have already learned that his participation is neither welcome nor necessary if they want to get things done.

But he still has a job to do. More on that tomorrow.

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